There's a YouTube video doing the rounds that demonstrates the Mac Studio is slower and Apple's used their own 'relative performance' axis on their charts (something about a power v performance trade-off).
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Mac Studio vs. Mac Pro Buyer's Guide
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I love these topics....4+ years tech vs. brand new.....
Mac Pro was always the pro workstation machine which was introduced last in technology chain (as well as the G5) and that was good because it was the most mature (with exception of 6.1 trash-rubbish) and fastest product, but the problem was when new CPU arrives, the desktop and entry level products could be the faster then last technology Mac Pro. Mac Studio is not not ordinary desktop product, so of course it will be faster. But those categories of products should not even compare.
If you need expendability and connectivity - Mac Pro, because who would buy the machine with the size od Mac Studio and then add external extension boxes, eGPUs and so on.
Mac Pro was always the pro workstation machine which was introduced last in technology chain (as well as the G5) and that was good because it was the most mature (with exception of 6.1 trash-rubbish) and fastest product, but the problem was when new CPU arrives, the desktop and entry level products could be the faster then last technology Mac Pro. Mac Studio is not not ordinary desktop product, so of course it will be faster. But those categories of products should not even compare.
If you need expendability and connectivity - Mac Pro, because who would buy the machine with the size od Mac Studio and then add external extension boxes, eGPUs and so on.
Oh I watched the whole thing. It is a lot more repairable than lots of prior hardware (even if only by Apple; I wouldn’t want to mess with it), and that’s a good thing.
What is it slower in? I guess performance of some specific workflows.
For those that shelled out the dough for a MacPro, I hope Apple will make it possible to upgrade to Apple silicon when the time comes. I have my doubts.
My Mac Pro is still powerful for what it does. There are characteristics that Mac Pro has than AS doesn’t yet appear to support.
I don’t need Apple Silicon, as much as it’s be nice.
Since I haven't seen it pointed out before getting bored reading the exact same comment over and over, the Mac Pro and the Mac Studio are both intended for professional audiences. There are some high end hobbyists with enough disposable income that buy them, and no end of social media influencers looking to get a few clicks. But the Mac Studio is call the "Studio" not the "Media" or the "Influencer."
The vast majority of "pro" users do not upgrade their machines after purchase in the same way that the vast majority of car owners do not build them into street racers. It is a tool to do a job. A lot of people posting here talk about how 'upgradeable' the Mac Pro is. Honestly ask yourself, what percentage of people do you know that actually do those upgrades compared to the ones that don't. Be sure to exclude gamers because that is not what the overwhelming majority of professional people do with their workstations (and not what most people buy a Mac for in the first place).
How many people actually upgrade video cards before upgrading their whole computer? How many of those PCI slots are actually used? 1-2 for video cards. What other cards do *most* people put in a modern computer? Sound cards are almost all built in now. Raid controllers are built in now. Ethernet is built in. Wifi is built in. USB is built in. Bluetooth is built in. Unless you have something fairly exotic, you do not need the extra PCI slots. Thunderbolt 4 will handle most of that stuff and make it easier in most, but admittedly not all, cases.
This is why, even in Wintel world, most professional PCs are not upgraded. Yes, better video cards are coming. How much better and how soon? Nvidia and AMD release a new gamer card every 6 months or so, but professionals do not upgrade on a gamer schedule. Its more like every three years. The performance difference is then large enough to justify buying a whole new computer, including a new GPU. If you are a smaller studio, then you can offset the cost a bit by selling off your old Mac Studio as Macs hold their value a bit better than Wintel.
Really, the fact that Apple sells these things so fast that they are back-ordered for a month, and the fact that they are selling better now than ever before, and the fact that Apple is making money hand over fist selling them should be seen as some kind of indicator that they have a least a small clue about what they are doing. Gateway and Compaq built wonderfully upgradeable computers. Feel free to go buy one. Or, if you know how to run a computer company better than Apple, go do that. I am sure Dell would love your expertise, and they are hiring right now.
The vast majority of "pro" users do not upgrade their machines after purchase in the same way that the vast majority of car owners do not build them into street racers. It is a tool to do a job. A lot of people posting here talk about how 'upgradeable' the Mac Pro is. Honestly ask yourself, what percentage of people do you know that actually do those upgrades compared to the ones that don't. Be sure to exclude gamers because that is not what the overwhelming majority of professional people do with their workstations (and not what most people buy a Mac for in the first place).
How many people actually upgrade video cards before upgrading their whole computer? How many of those PCI slots are actually used? 1-2 for video cards. What other cards do *most* people put in a modern computer? Sound cards are almost all built in now. Raid controllers are built in now. Ethernet is built in. Wifi is built in. USB is built in. Bluetooth is built in. Unless you have something fairly exotic, you do not need the extra PCI slots. Thunderbolt 4 will handle most of that stuff and make it easier in most, but admittedly not all, cases.
This is why, even in Wintel world, most professional PCs are not upgraded. Yes, better video cards are coming. How much better and how soon? Nvidia and AMD release a new gamer card every 6 months or so, but professionals do not upgrade on a gamer schedule. Its more like every three years. The performance difference is then large enough to justify buying a whole new computer, including a new GPU. If you are a smaller studio, then you can offset the cost a bit by selling off your old Mac Studio as Macs hold their value a bit better than Wintel.
Really, the fact that Apple sells these things so fast that they are back-ordered for a month, and the fact that they are selling better now than ever before, and the fact that Apple is making money hand over fist selling them should be seen as some kind of indicator that they have a least a small clue about what they are doing. Gateway and Compaq built wonderfully upgradeable computers. Feel free to go buy one. Or, if you know how to run a computer company better than Apple, go do that. I am sure Dell would love your expertise, and they are hiring right now.
The SSDs can be replaced. They are plugins like the Mac Pro but smaller.
The AS doesn‘t ship with ECC - so it isn‘t pro in terms of a Mac Pro/workstation. Same is true for the CPU. It remains to be seen, but the AS isn‘t designed for heavy server workloads a workstation can do.
This is the main difference between a Mac Pro and AS. Server grade CPUs are super expensive - so it is a must have that other components like RAM or GPUs are upgradeable.
I don‘t say AS is bad. It is a nice desktop machine - but it isn‘t for the heavy workloads a Mac Pro can handle.
Yes, you quoted a post I made before the teardowns hit the tubes.
It's good that the SSDs are replaceable - we've yet to see whether Apple are going to make upgrade kits available and - if they're like the Mac Pro modules - third party alternatives won't be possible because "security features".
The Studio is a FCPx/Logic appliance that maxes out at 128GB RAM c.f. 1.5TB of (ECC) RAM for the Mac Pro. It's not going to meet the needs of anybody who needs 512GB+ RAM to hold humungous models, and that's probably correlated strongly with ECC being a must-have (...more RAM, higher probability of RAM errors).
Plus - and I'm asking questions here, not arguing - what's the error rate on LPDDR modules physically soldered to the chip package (so, ultra-short data busses and surrounded by big chunks of aluminium or copper)? I honestly don't know but "not the same as DDR4 SODIMMs" seems like a given - could be better, could be worse.
Is ECC still necessary - or is "pro servers and workstations must have ECC" a 20-year-old bit of "conventional wisdom" overdue for review, especially with a significantly different memory architecture?
...ECC compatibility was also exploited by Intel as a way of differentiating their more expensive Xeon range from their "consumer" chips - so it's an issue worth questioning (I believe that some AMD Ryzen chips support it, it's not exclusive to Epyc).
I guess ECC is one way that Apple could distinguish the forthcoming Mac Pro (I believe that ECC is possible with LPDDR).
The Mac Pro has always been a "spend a fortune on it because it's upgradeable and then never be able to upgrade it again" type of thing. Despite all the modularity you still can't put an M1 chip in it, which is likely the main issue with it. So much for spending a fortune on future-proofing.
I feel like to get the most out of Apple products, you should always just stick to the mainstream offering even if it's not for you.
I feel like to get the most out of Apple products, you should always just stick to the mainstream offering even if it's not for you.
unless critical billing software , calculation we think not much important . Old times , itanium shown to our customer as billing software proc which can handle ehm ehm.
If you need a server , buy real server .
If you used to mac , just buy new whatever available.
** use the right tool for right problem . A highest mac /computer is not fast unless you have plan how to use it. Waiting a cup of coffee or kill apps hang ( ohh real issue here) .Speed not the real issue for normal work using mac. 0.000008 second faster nahh , i rather want stable apps.
It is called the Mac Studio, not the Mac Server.
ECC provides error checking at the expense of a speed hit. For the target audience, speed is more important than the “belt and suspenders” protection of ECC.
Both differences are small, but you can’t fairly criticize Apple for not being fast enough and then criticize them for not deliberately taking a 2% speed hit for something that is, at best, an extreme edge case for the people using it.
Modern manufacturing and improved OSes have made memory failure much less common than it was 20 years ago. ECC still has an edge, but it isn’t by much.
Most work computers do not use ECC RAM as it is more expensive. The work laptops being used are the same Dell/HP/Lenovo that you see at Best Buy. Even the engineering groups crunching numbers are often doing it on normal RAM.
For video editors, graphic designers, musicians, and photographers, ECC is an added expense in dollars and, more importantly, speed that offers no real benefits.
So for the intended audience, it certainly is ‘pro enough.’ While I am sure someone in all the internet can manufacture an example, the statistics show that would be a edge case for a permanent speed hit. If your luck runs that badly, you would be better off spending that money on lightning rods.
I think what would make me happy after spending the boat load of money on my 2019 MP Is if we could upgrade the CPU to what ever chip we want M1 Ultra, M2, M whatever, then I would not feel as ****** and frustrated About my purchase. Otherwise it’s a great box, flexible and well executed.
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There's a lot of engineering disciplines using the Mac Pro, not just creative professionals.
E.g in engineering disciplines, you really don't want that aerofoil simulation producing an inaccurate result because of memory errors.
Yeah, those engineering studios probably need a different tool for their job. But again, those kinds of errors are much less common today than 20 years ago, and most of those errors are hard crashes rather than data corruption. So you are talking about an edge case of an edge case.
Movers and race car drivers are both professional (pro) drivers, but that doesn’t make loading a house full of furniture onto an F1 car practical. It doesn’t make a Uhaul a good race car. Not everyone needs the same tools.
It may seem like the wrong tool for the job to you, but that doesn't invalidate that there are users out there.
I have updated every single Apple tower that I have owned; Blue&White G3; upgraded to a G4 and a better GPU; drives, ram, etc etc. (and the thing still works, I kept it since it was the first Firewire enabled Mac); PowerMac G5, Ram, drives, PCI cards. 2019 Mac Pro; bought with the 580x on purpose since I knew the AMD 6000 series was right around the corner; bought the W6800x Duo. Also bought a PCI USB3.0 card so I had more USB-A slots. Soon going to upgrade the RAM (not from Apple, lol). So I think you are wrong. I think most people who would spend that money do in fact upgrade them over time.
RAID controllers are not built in; not in the traditional sense. Yes you can do a software RAID; but a hardware based controller RAID will always be faster.
Also building wintel machines isn't hard.
I could see myself swapping the CPU in my MacPro also down the road; but I would only do that after I had something else in place; my long term plan is to transition the MacPro into a Windows box once suitable Apple silicon MacPro is released; but I am not going to jump on the bandwagon until I get at least 5 years out of the Mac Pro; after all it isn't like it is getting slower; and it was a hell of a investment. But an investment that has made my life a whole hell of lot easier since I am not waiting all day long for **** to happen.
Don't hold your breath on that one. If the Silicon Mac Pro retains the same enclosure then maybe just maybe, but if the form factor is different in any way -- then I would take that as a big NOPE.
My guess is that the Apple silicon MacPro will look similar but be smaller. After all, you will not need dedicated PCI slots for GPUs anymore, maybe? Also the need for the AfterBurner card goes away.
I am thinking that it will have 4 slots, with maybe only 1 as a double wide.
There's pro audio use cases where there's PCIe cards, so GPUs aren't the only thing using them
I am in no way saying or have ever said those users aren’t out there. I can’t even call that a twisting of my words as I have often said the exact opposite, and implied it in that post you are responding to (wrong tool for the job working both ways). That is an outright fabrication based on what I can only guess you would like to argue against.
My point is that there are plenty of professional people for whom the Mac Studio is a good fit. I have never said or implied that it is the perfect computer for all use cases, or even all professional use cases.
I would even go so far as to say there are a lot more Studio target users than there are ones who absolutely must have ECC memory. Otherwise, Apple would be releasing the Mac Engineering model instead of the Mac Studio.
Do you really think there is a good market for small, independent freelance engineers who work on out of their home lab taking up odd jobs for when the occasional airplane need to be redesigned? I am not saying they don’t exist, but do you think they outnumber photographers and YouTube channels and musicians - combined?
If so, you should absolutely design a computer and market it, because nobody else in the entire world believes this. Not even flat earthers are that far out there.
Before everyone goes too far with this, there is some write ups on AppleARM64ErrorHandler.
ARM cores are not the same as Intel and EEC may be handle differently. And the used in the M1 SOC LPDDR5 does support EEC.
JEDEC updates LPDDR5 standard for low power memory devices
ARLINGTON, VA—JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, a global standards developer for the microelectronics industry, on Tuesday announced the publication of JESD209-5, Low ...
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